Hot Doesn't Equal 'Cooked'

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Food safety consultant G. Peter Healy urges operators to educate themselves and their employees about the potential dangers of not handling and preparing seafood properly. More than that, he suggests they take a long, hard look at the cooking process. "How often do we see fish that is not pasteurized—that is, it's undercooked—because the chef sees that as a negative because for quality reasons he wants it at less than full pasteurization?"

When serving a piece of seafood that is less than pasteurized, he explains, "you are not killing the food-borne illness pathogens. Therefore, when you get a piece of fish that is not fully cooked you should be treating that as raw food."

When preparing items like oysters, he adds, "if you get a poached oyster, in some cases it will not be cooked. It will be heated up, but it will not be cooked. It should be treated as a raw oyster, even though it's gone through a partial cooking process. If it's inadequately cooked it has not been made safer through the cooking process."

Caution required: Healy goes a step further. "If you want to serve some things like that there should be a warning. I work with a lot of the big names in New Orleans, and I warn them they would be better served if they put a notice at the bottom: 'If you are immune-compromised, such as a cancer patient being treated, or an elderly person, you probably should stay away from the items that are not fully cooked."

Operators are also urged to exercise care when handling the tags found on shellfish. Many states require that they be kept in-house for 90 days so that if there is a problem with food-borne illness, it can be more easily traced back to its source.